I have a HP 6715b laptop and when I disconnect the AC I want the network card to continue operating.

Currently I cannot use WOL as the network card is not powered by the battery even with a network cable plugged in. I have checked BIOS and enabled all I can. Also, in Device Manager in Windows 7 I have gone to the power management tab in the network card properties and tried a variety of settings without success.

After a lengthy chat with HP they're saying this laptop simply doesn't operate like this. When no AC is connected the LAN is disabled when the laptop is asleep or powered off. No lights are flashing on the network port.

14 Replies

I'm not very familiar with HP, but if they have an energy saver program, make sure that it isn't disabling the NIC when the power profile changes. Also, check any 3rd party NIC software that may have come with the PC.

We have several of the 6715b laptops and I can't say I have seen this problem before. This model has an onboard nic, so when you have the ac power plugged into the laptop the nic works or are you using a docking station to supply the ac power? It sounds like you may have a bad nic on the system board, more than a battery issue, though I would download HP's Battery Check utility to check that just the same. When you plug a network cable directly into the nic are you getting any lights on the nic port at all?

Have you checked to see if a new driver is available that might address this issue? You might also try removing and reinstalling the NIC driver. Here is a link with some general troubleshooting steps that might help:

I've had this problem with Dell laptops in the past. The configuration for this was in Dell's add-on power manager.

There isn't anything specific in the Windows standard power management that you can change to either cause or not cause an Ethernet port to go online or offline when power switches to AC or battery; the most you can do is flip the checkbox in the Ethernet port's properties that says "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". You can try flipping this off but it won't help if an OEM add-on is what's turning the port off, which is probably the case.

Also, Windows 7 (at least) disables WOL for laptops by default because WOL can apparently cause laptops to fire up at random, like while being carried in a bag, and overheat. You will have to enable this option in the interface properties if you want it on.

As I have thought about this I do remember an issue with one of our users who wanted to be able to have the laptop on a docking station, then eject it off w/out powering down and be able to use it on the network, but it wouldn't hot swap. I downloaded a firmware update from HP which fixed the problem. Sorry I can't recall what model it was, but if this sounds similar you might take a look at the firmware for the 6515b model on HP's website.

After a lengthy chat with HP they're saying this laptop simply doesn't operate like this. When no AC is connected the LAN is disabled when the laptop is asleep or powered off. No lights are flashing on the network port.